Coming Soon

A poster for the classic German 1920s film "Metropolis" has been sold for a world record $690,000 to a private collector from the United States. That's great. That means my "Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan" poster is probably worth almost ten dollars now. Truth is, for the collector (which I periodically refer to myself as) the Jason poster could go for as high as one hundred dollars, since it was a preview sheet and Paramount was supposed to destroy all of them since the studio failed to get clearance for the "I (heart) N.Y." logo from the folks in the Big Apple.
The problem with my collection is that it is almost entirely anecdotal, with very few pieces that have any real collectible value beyond their meaning to me. I've got posters for just about every Terry Gilliam movie (even "Jabberwocky"). I've got posters for movies that never got released (Roger Corman's version of "The Fantastic Four"). I've got a whole slew of posters for horror films that my wife won't let me put up (they're more for the bachelor pad, I suppose). I do have a poster for "Revenge of the Jedi." That one is actually worth something, since it is not only rare, but has a collector's cachet to it - especially now that George Lucas has finished the second trilogy with "Revenge of the Sith."
Still - there isn't enough wall space in three houses to mount all the art that I've collected over the years. Why do I bother keeping it around? I could sell it all in an afternoon on Ebay.
But that would be wrong. Each one has a story. I've got a pair of Marlene Dietrich reprints for my wife. My son has "Dumbo" because at the very bottom of the poster you can see his favorite train from his infancy: Casey Junior. The horror movies remind me of the apartments I trashed throughout college. It's a great big scrapbook that I'm not ready to part with.
Maybe someday someone will offer me a thousand dollars for the Jason poster. Until then, I'm hanging onto them.